CAREER: Nuclear History as History of Science

职业：作为科学史的核历史

• 批准号: 9983981
• 负责人: Cathryn Carson
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-01-01 至 2008-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9983981&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Nuclear; History; Science

SES 99-83981 - Cathryn L. Carson (University of California, Berkeley)"CAREER: Nuclear History as History of Science"This CAREER project carries out an integrated program of work with the title "Nuclear history as history of science." In research and teaching it explores the interweaving of technical and sociopolitical matters characteristic of the nuclear age. For the research component Professor Carson is framing a technically informed history of the conceptualizations of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste is a problem whose perceived nature has changed dramatically from the 1940s to the present: what was once thought to be a small technical difficulty, soluble with modest effort on the basis of readily obtainable knowledge, has become a major international field of research with intensely complex demands of modeling and experimentation. Professor Carson's study examines the changing conception of the very nature of the challenge -- what sort of scientific problem nuclear waste has been understood to be -- and so brings technical matters back into our histories of policy and politics. Focusing on the U.S., Germany, and either France or Switzerland, it takes a comparative approach as a way of opening up points of controversy. The resulting account will be of value to broader communities with practical interests, since past attitudes towards nuclear waste stand in the background of many of its present problems. At the same time the project addresses itself to historians thinking about theoretical questions, using the exemplary site of nuclear waste management to investigate the interface between the sociopolitical and the technical.The education component then pursues the project's theme in a new undergraduate course that Professor Carson is devising at the University of California, Berkeley. As a history of science course on the nuclear age, the class brings together students from the sciences, engineering, humanities, and social sciences. In their encounters with this complex period, with its interweaving of technical and sociopolitical problems, the students will explore models of historical explanation that will serve them past the semester's end. The course title, "Nuclear Berkeley, Nuclear World," indicates its double focus: the local history of the university, the community, and the region, and the global context framing the developments at home. Along with standard pedagogical strategies of reading, lecture, and discussion, Professor Carson's course makes considered use of a web infrastructure for information and interaction. Moreover, as the culmination of the class experience it engages students in hands-on historical research, teaching them what goes into creating histories through the experience of practicing it themselves. The local focus of many student projects -- given the area's unparalleled resources -- will then return their work to the community, as their reports will be made available on the website as a gateway beyond the university.The two components of the project are mutually supportive. They explore technical optimism and historical inevitability at scales large and small: thus nuclear waste takes its place in the educational framework, while the course's overarching narrative provides the backdrop for the research. And the student projects, for their part, make connections back to Professor Carson's research, establishing contacts, unearthing sources, and opening up new fields to study.

SES 99-83981 -Cathryn L. Carson（加利福尼亚大学，伯克利分校）“职业：核历史作为科学史”，“这项职业项目”实施了一项综合计划，其标题为“核历史为科学史”。 在研究和教学中，它探讨了核时代技术和社会政治问题的交织。对于研究组成部分，卡森教授正在构建核废料概念化的技术知情历史。核废料是一个问题，从1940年代到现在，人们的感知性质发生了巨大变化：曾经被认为是一个小的技术困难，基于易于获得的知识而付出了适度的努力，已成为一个重要的国际研究领域，并具有强烈​​复杂的建模和实验需求。卡森教授的研究研究了挑战性质的不断变化的概念 - 核废料已被理解为哪种科学问题 - 因此将技术事项带回了我们的政策和政治历史。专注于美国，德国以及法国或瑞士，它采取了比较的方法，作为开放争议点的一种方式。最终的说法对具有实际利益的更广泛的社区具有价值，因为过去对核废料的态度在其许多问题的背景下。同时，该项目将自己介绍给思考理论问题的历史学家，利用核废物管理的典范场所研究社会政治与技术之间的界面。教育部分随后在伯克利分校在加利福尼亚大学制定的新的本科课程中，在新的本科课程中追求该项目的主题。作为核时代科学课程的历史，班级将科学，工程，人文科学和社会科学的学生汇集在一起​​。在与这个复杂时期的相遇，与技术和社会政治问题交织在一起，学生将探索历史解释的模型，这些模型将在学期结束时为他们服务。课程标题“核伯克利，核世界”表示其双重重点：大学，社区和地区的当地历史以及全球背景在国内发展。除了阅读，讲座和讨论的标准教学策略外，卡森教授的课程还考虑了使用网络基础架构进行信息和互动。此外，随着班级的高潮经验，它使学生参与动手历史研究，教他们通过自己练习的经验来创造历史的原因。鉴于该地区无与伦比的资源，许多学生项目的当地重点将其工作将其报告返回社区，因为他们的报告将在大学以外的网站上提供。该项目的两个组成部分相互支持。他们探索了大小规模的技术乐观和历史上的必然性：因此，核废料在教育框架中占据一席之地，而课程的总体叙述为研究提供了背景。而学生的项目则可以与卡森教授的研究联系起来，建立联系，发掘来源并开放新领域进行研究。